four of us are going to backpack from clingmans dome to 71 to fontana to 71 to silers bald to clingmans over 4 days. Is that a good and doable route? Anybody done it?

mtnman2888

04-10-2008, 09:24 AM

I'm kinda confused on what your plans are, are you going from the dome all the way down to fontana lake and then all the way back up to the dome or are you just going down to 71 and then back up?

From the dome it's only about 9 miles down to 71 so you could easily do that and have plenty of time to fish in 4 days. Since you are going downhill and if you are in reasonably good shape, i would think you could do that hike in under 4 hours pretty easy, but that's just my guesstimate. If you are going with someone else (i assume you are), you could leave one car at the end of the road to nowhere and another at the top of the dome to save you the trip back up the dome, but i've heard some stories about vandalism and so forth at the end of the road to nowhere. We are trying to avoid leaving a vehicle there at all costs on our planned trip to the area.

Anyways, i hope this helps some. If you could maybe clear up your plans a little more then i would have a better idea of what your intentions are.

Craig

jross

04-10-2008, 09:34 AM

Day 1; dome to 71 fish if time permits
day 2; 71 to fonatana back to 71, whole day devoted to fishing
day 3; 71 to Silers bald
Day 4; Appl. Trail back to dome.

PeteCz

04-10-2008, 12:37 PM

Day 1; dome to 71 fish if time permits
day 2; 71 to fonatana back to 71, whole day devoted to fishing
day 3; 71 to Silers bald
Day 4; Appl. Trail back to dome.

Its definitely doable. If you are going to the trouble of hiking in from above, I think I would be tempted to stay high and not take the time to go down to the lake to fish, you can do that from the "Road to Nowhere" at another time. This is what I would do:

Day 1: Hike from Dome to 70 and fish above 70 after setting up camp
Day 2: Hike down to 71 and fish back up to camp (70)
Day 3: Break camp and fish part of the way up Jonas Creek and then hike to Silers Bald Shelter
Day 4: Hike from Silers Bald Shelter to Dome (on AT)

my $.02

sammcdonald

04-10-2008, 06:36 PM

when i was young and stronger and more foolish, i went from clingman's to fontana in one day......but there was no fishing and no dawdling.
sam

psnapp

04-11-2008, 07:15 PM

Sam -- guess those late night runs into town from Bostepe (?) built some super stamina!

Phil

sammcdonald

04-11-2008, 07:31 PM

hey phil,
and all that papas that we carried back.....
glad to see ya,
sam